IceCube Neutrino Observatory
Deployment of IceCube's final string - Astronomy Picture of the day - Feburary 13, 2011
IceCube is the largest neutrino detector on Earth. Located at the geographic South Pole,
IceCube consists of strings of photomultiplier tubes deployed between 1500 and 2500 meters
deep in the Antarctic icecap. Construction of the IceCube detector was complete as of January 2011,
with 86 strings instrumenting a cubic kilometer. IceCube was built to detect astrophysical
neutrinos at TeV-PeV energies from objects such as active galactic nuclei and gamma ray bursts,
which are believed to be the source of the highest-energy cosmic rays.IceCube also searches
for neutrinos from the annihilation of dark matter and explores fundamental aspects of neutrino physics
with neutrinos produced by cosmic rays interacting in our atmosphere.
The group of Dr. Dawn Williams and Dr. Pat Toale is developing techniques to identify tau neutrinos in IceCube data. The Alabama IceCube group is also responsible for calibration of the detector with LED flashers, the coordination of IceCube software and IceCube data quality.